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Bones Season 7 Spoilers: A Shifting Dynamic

After six seasons of keeping us guessing, Booth and Brennan will now be living together, as a full-fledged couple, preparing for the birth of their first child.

Executive producer Stephen Nathan spoke about that changing dynamic and much more in a recent interview with TV Guide. Excerpts appear below:

On whether Emily Deschanel's pregnancy spawned this twist: "We'd been talking about it even before the pregnancy. We had something to deal with here that was a reality. There are two people that the audience ultimately knew had to get together."

"So, how do we get these two people together without falling victim [the Moonlighting curse]? It seemed this was a way to leapfrog that time in a relationship when it's all lovey-dovey [because] that's when it becomes uninteresting; the conflict disappears."

On the lack of a love scene: "We have seen those scenes in the past. I know there are some viewers who wanted to see them in bed, kissing and the lights go out and all that stuff. It just did not seem necessary to us."

"It seemed to us that what we saw in the penultimate episode - Brennan coming to Booth's bed - [was] them probably being as loving as two people can be."

"Seeing them jumping around in the sack did not seem as important to us as the emotional evolution of the characters and who they were to each other."

On the changed dynamic: "It'll just be a new way to see them. It's going to be a new take on their relationship, because they're not going to change."

"These are two people who see the world in a fundamentally different way, and they're now going to have to find a way to live together and have a family."

"They've always loved each other. The audience has always known that. But they have to negotiate all of the complexities of living together."

On their status this fall: "They are a couple who have come together to have and raise this baby. How Booth and Brennan are a couple remains to be seen."

"Booth is the marrying kind; Brennan doesn't want to get married. These are issues that are going to come up and be an integral part of their relationship."

On when the baby will be born: "I can't tell you. We are just trying to make this as surprising and sort of emotionally fraught as we possibly can."

On the role of family members: "We'll be seeing Max (Ryan O'Neal) again, and we'll be dealing with an important aspect of Booth's family as well."

On doing just six episodes in the fall: "Had we started earlier, we still would have had a limited number of episodes because of Emily's condition."

"[But] we would have been on the air and off the air and on the air and off the air. I think the best thing for the show always is to have a longer run of uninterrupted episodes so that the audience and the fans can really get involved."

On a surprise development at the end of those episodes: "We want to leave with a real surprise for the audience from a plot point of view. I'm not necessarily talking about Booth and Brennan. I mean introducing another nefarious character."